Snooker – The Game Of Colors Points And Strategy

The forerunner of Snooker was invented in India in the mid 1800’s and its popularity surged when officers and then enlisted men in the British Army took it up to alleviate the boredom of mess life in the compound.

But it became known as the game as known today when an army officer devised the set of rules in 1884 that have remained largely unchanged today. In the game, the word snooker, means to place the cue ball in a position where your opponent cannot hit the next ball in sequence.

But to British troops in India, “snooker”meant inexperienced and greenhorn troops – it remains open to debate, but many believe that the game took its mantle from the fact that so many young and freshly arrived troops began to play it.

Snooker is a game of sequence played on a green table with cushioned sides with six pockets that can be used to sink the balls. There is one white cue ball and 22 colored balls, 15 of which are red and worth one point each.

Every time the player sinks a red, he can move on to pot any color of his choice. They go up in points starting from two and go up to seven in the sequence of yellow, green, brown, blue, pink and black. If there are still reds remaining on the table, the colored balls are retrieved and placed back on their starting points by the referee. After a color is potted, then the player must go back to potting a red. Once all the reds are potted, then the player must pot the remaining balls in sequence of point value. Points are also awarded to an opposing player for fouls which include hitting the wrong color, missing completely or potting the white cue ball.

The maximum amount of points that can be scored at one go without fouls is 147 (known as a 147 break) and the maximum with fouls is 155 (also known as a super maximum).